| Experience |
| MIT CSAIL, Parallel and Distributed Operating Systems |
Cambridge, MA |
2001 - 2010 |
|
- Research focus: computer systems, especially security of
large-scale decentralized Internet systems.
- Thesis: Whanau, a structured overlay routing protocol
(DHT) which uses a social network to provide robustness
against powerful pseudonym (Sybil) attacks.
Advisor: M. Frans Kaashoek.
- UIA & Eyo: decentralized routing, naming, & storage in a
zero-configuration, secure, ad-hoc network.
- Alpaca: secure and flexible PKI based on a higher-order
logical framework.
- Other work: distributed and dynamic compact routing for the
Internet; coroutine-based asynchronous I/O programming framework;
game theory, economics, mechanism design, and reputation in
decentralized systems; distributed Web caching; RSA acceleration
using a commodity GPU.
- Master's thesis: SSL Splitting and Barnraising: Cooperative
Caching with Authenticity Guarantees.
- Instructor, 6.033 Computer Systems Engineering, 2003-2005.
- Visiting scholar, Cambridge University Computer Lab, 2004.
|
| Permabit |
Cambridge, MA |
2001 |
|
- Developed highly available, robust, secure, scalable data storage
system based on commodity hardware.
|
| Microsoft Research |
Redmond, WA |
2000 |
|
- I-Campus Secure Successor to the MIT Card project:
cryptographic protocol design.
|
| SensAble Technologies, Inc. |
Cambridge, MA |
1999 |
|
- R&D: hardware and software development for the PHANToM haptic
interface.
|
| MIT AI Lab, Mathematics and Computation |
Cambridge, MA |
1998 |
|
- Programmed randomly generated amorphous computers.
Advisors: Hal Abelson, Gerry Sussman.
|
| Education |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
Cambridge, MA |
1997 - Present |
|
- Doctoral candidate, Computer Science, 2003 - present. (GPA 5.0)
- M.Eng. and B.S. Electrical Engineering and Computer Science,
June 2003. (GPA 5.0)
- B.S. Mathematics (Minor in Physics), June 2001. (GPA 4.9)
- Topics: algorithms, complexity, compilers, software design,
modeling, cryptography, architecture, digital design, signal
processing, probability, algebra, quantum+stat physics, general
relativity, economics.
|
| Cohasset High School |
Cohasset, MA |
1992 - 1997 |
|
- Valedictorian, early graduation, Harvard Extension School,
Center for Talented Youth (CTY).
|
| Societies |
| |
| Skills |
|
- Languages: Python, Haskell, C, C++ STL/Boost, Java, Perl,
Javascript, LISP, Matlab, VHDL, Postscript, various assembly,
SQL, XML, HTML, CSS, LaTeX, GLSL, LF, Intercal, French, Chinese
- Network/system programming: TCP/IP, sockets, SSL/TLS, Kerberos,
asynchronous, threads, load balancing, scheduling, consistency,
kernels, compilers, JIT, virtualization, RDBMS, web apps, etc.
- Unix development: Make, GCC, git, Subversion, svk, VIM, X11,
test suites, Ubuntu, Solaris, etc.
- Digital design: Xilinx FPGA development tools, use of
oscilloscope, logic analyzer, datasheets, etc.
- Hobbies: coding, cycling, photography, cooking, SCUBA, travel,
hiking, karate, economics
|
| Software systems developed at MIT |
| Whanau |
|
2010 |
|
- Designed and implemented a secure distributed hash table (DHT),
a decentralized structured overlay network which can quickly
look up the node responsible for a given key. (Existing DHT
applications include distributed databases, filesystems,
caching, rendezvous, and streaming multicast.)
- Novelty: Whanau uses an online social network to bootstrap a
robust overlay network. It is secure against powerful denial of
service (DoS) attacks, including the pseudonym-based "Sybil
attack."
- Implementation: high-performance in-memory simulator
(C++/Boost), asynchronous network daemon (Python) deployed on
PlanetLab testbed. Solo.
- Supervised Master's thesis implementing secure SIP rendezvous
over Whanau (Java).
|
| UIA |
|
2006 |
|
- Designed, implemented, debugged, and demoed a routing and naming
system which ties together users' many personal devices (e.g.,
laptops, phones, cameras, media players) into a coherent
cluster. After devices are named and introduced to each other,
UIA ensures that they can communicate whenever physically
possible. Users can refer to each others' devices by recursive
names such as phone.dad.bob.
- Novelty: UIA maintains a shared, concurrently-modified namespace
across intermittently-connected devices, and securely propagates
peer-to-peer updates without relying on a master server.
- Implementation: routing module and kernel hooks (C++/Boost), UI
(C++/QT), name database and resolver (Python).
Team: 4 core developers, 2 PIs.
Also incorporated into a Nokia product demo.
|
| Eyo |
|
2009 |
|
- Continues the UIA project. Eyo is a data storage system and API
which provides a consistent view of a user's data objects (e.g.,
photos, music, email) across all of her devices. Eyo tracks
object updates, forwards changes to running applications,
handles network partitions and concurrent updates, and
proactively partitions and replicates data across heterogeneous
devices.
- Novelty: Eyo separates objects' metadata from their content and
distributes all metadata to all devices, while partially
replicating content to some devices.
- Implementation: storage system (Python), C API (C/D-Bus),
example applications (Python and C).
Team: 3 core developers, 1 collaborator, 2 PIs.
|
| Alpaca |
|
2007 |
|
- Invented and implemented a logic-based proof-carrying
authorization protocol. Alpaca provides an API enabling network
applications to state and prove logical assertions such as "the
principal Alice says to delete the file X" using cryptographic
operations specified in the accompanying proof.
- Novelty: verifiers don't care how the proof is structured, as
long as it is valid. Thus, Alpaca permits provers to use
different cryptographic techniques (e.g., new hash functions or
data transport mechanisms) without breaking compatibility with
existing verifiers. Alpaca's flexibility is more "future-proof"
than crypto protocols such as Kerberos and TLS, which can only
be updated by installing new software.
- Implementation: logic language, logic engine, cryptography, test
suites, demos (Python). Solo.
|
| Barnraising |
|
2003 |
|
- Designed and implemented a peer-to-peer content distribution
network (CDN). Barnraising enables Web sites to delegate some
of their load to a distributed network of cooperating cache
hosts.
- Novelty: Barnraising uses a new technique called SSL Splitting
to securely serve data using untrusted caches. Because a
malicious cache cannot send clients bogus data, Barnraising can
safely permit any Internet host to contribute cache space. Other
systems are limited to centrally-controlled cache servers.
- Implementation: SSL Splitting library (drop-in replacement for
popular OpenSSL library, C), caching Web proxy, tracker, and DNS
server (Perl). Solo.
|
| See also |
| |